William uncovered and entered.
About the door was the square, wooden railing, its gate locked during service so that the devout might not be disturbed, and the late-comers be pilloried in the public eye, forced to remain standing like sheep in a pen; now, however, the gate stood open, and William, resting his hand on it, looked round.
He was under the tower and the organ, sideways to the length of the building and facing the pulpit.
Magnificent in line and proportion, and of a noble magnitude, the great church gave an instant and chilling impression of bareness and coldness.
The Reformation had let the light into this and many another once dim and gorgeous temple of the old faith. The jewelled colours had gone from the arched windows, and clear glass took their place. Precious marbles, gold and silver vessels, tapestries and paintings had gone also, and walls and roof were whitewashed from top to bottom; in the daylight glaring in on them from the unshaded windows they gave a desolate effect of dreary immensity.
The huge pillars set in double rows were whitewashed too; in parts, on their granite bases, it had worn off and showed the stone beneath.
Monuments, saints, shrines, and carvings had been torn from the walls, and unbroken panelling of plain wood covered the places that knew them no more.
There was no altar; where it had been stood a bare and open space.
Heavy, stiff, and narrow pews filled the nave, and under the severe, high-placed pulpit the seats of the elders rose in tiers, each with a brass-clasped Bible before it out of which hung a long green marker.
William leant heavily on the gate and gazed at the spot where, opposite to him, two monuments broke the white expanse of wall. They were the tablets in black to the memory of William, King of Holland, and his brother Floris. Above them an inscription told how the latter had died, and been buried here in Middelburg 1256. The King’s tablet bore a simple carving of a mantle, a wreath with a sword through it, a crowned helmet—a globe.